Discussion

Deep Fried Bacon--How Much Worse?

I love my bacon,egg and cheese on a roll. Maybe one of the great sandwiches of all time and sadly, pretty unhealthy. I have two small storefront sandwich joints that I go to for my sandwich. For you NY's it is Sams on Mulberry and Mosco and Paulie's on Baxter near Bayard. Sam's uses bigger eggs, melts the cheese more completely, will add Jalapeno's on request and is slightly cheaper. He deep fries the bacon. Tosses it in raw, gives it a long dunk, drains it and throws it on the sandwich. Paulie's does it under a foil wrapped brick on a flat metal griddle. So, how much worse is it for my health? Is the obvious answer the right one, that with a sandwich like that any difference is inconsequencial. Is it just a mental hurdle to be overcome?

Likely, the deep-fried one is slightly higher in fat, but the flat-top one may have residual burnt grease on the wrapped brick which would make it slightly more carcinogenic. But it's bacon, and yummy with just about everything.

It's not a question of how much fat is used in the cooking process, but how much stays on the bacon afterward. Given that either way the entire surface of the bacon gets covered in grease, if it's drained afterward I would think the results are pretty much the same.